Behind the Curtain: Russia and Crimea

What's going on between Ukraine and Russia? Could it spark a widespread conflict? Join Ben and Matt for their first installment of the "Behind the Curtain" series, where they cut past the rhetoric to explore the truth behind murky international affairs.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs two ghosts and government cover ups. Histories were
with unexplained events. You can turn back now or learn
the stuff they don't want you to now. All right, everyone, Hello,
welcome back to the show. My name is Matt and
I am Ben. And this is stuff they don't want

(00:21):
you to know. Now. We're talking about some current events today. Ben,
we're talking about a situation that has the potential to
get rather hairy rather quickly. Um. It's these kind of
issues when we're dealing with geo political factions and and
lots of weaponry and militaries, UM, and diplomacy to an extent,

(00:45):
I just by default, uh I I go okay, what
does Ben think about this? And I'm not sure. I'm
not sure if many of our listeners really know about
your background? And I don't want you, you know, I
don't want you to reveal anything you're uncomfortable with revealing,
but if you wouldn't mind, can you please tell our
listeners if they didn't know already, kind of your background

(01:06):
in schooling just a little bit so they can better understand. Um? Okay,
why you can speak to this with authority? Oh authority?
A I don't know? Um, I believe you can. Well,
thank you, Matt, that's really that's really kind of you.
I uh study international affairs UM extensively, both for fun

(01:26):
and profit. I'm kidding about the last part UM. And
we're always interested. I think both of us are interested
in the way that nations are shaped and the we're
we're always interested in behind the curtain things. So, as
you and I have talked about before, often when there's
going to be an international conflict, that there's another compelling

(01:49):
reason behind it. You know. That's why we've said before
that people should always be cautious when a politician is
trying to convince you that a war should be fought
on ideological grounds, because you know, there there's some pretty
good arguments that every war is ultimately a war about resources,

(02:10):
tangible assets, not feelings really, because nations don't really have friends,
they have common interests, they have they have this investment stuff.
And so we've been fascinated by by this for a
long time, so much so that uh, I'm frightened of
trying to do a North Korea episode because it might

(02:32):
never end. UM. So with this new series that we're doing,
UM calling it behind the Curtain, and it's our attempt
to sort of pierce the veil of what the politicians
and a lot of the mainstream media, whether it's attempting
to be biased like RT dot com or like Fox,

(02:53):
or whether it's attempting to be more objective. Um. And
I'm not going to name an objective exam uple there,
because I'm sure that everyone has, you know, their own
well yeah, but everyone also has their their go to
source that they feel is the most objective. I know,
I certainly have one, So just insert yours, okay, uh

(03:18):
uh man, I don't know if there is one I
don't have. What are you? What are you working with? Well?
There are a couple. For me. A lot of times
I go for Vice just because of their man on
the man, man on the ground really in it style
where there will send one person and a camera and
go and talk to people. Uh. But also something like
Democracy Now, which I feel leans pretty hard to the left.

(03:43):
But but a lot of times when there's someone on
Democracy Now talking about a subject, I feel like they
allow for that person to speak their peace. And we
we work with so many people who are just wildly
knowledgeable about things. Sometimes I think of just standing on
my chair and going Hey, everybody, hold on a second,

(04:04):
everyone put everyone put your keyboards down. I'm gonna say
the following keywords, and I just want to hear your
reactions starting from the left, um, which is probably an
effective way to do it. But we digress. So so, yes,
I do uh study international affairs, um, both on a
formal level and uh for uh giggles, I guess um.

(04:27):
So let me ask a couple of questions with you,
matt um. First things first, when we're talking about the
current situation with Crimea and Russia and Ukraine and the
West which means NATO, then I'm sure there's a question
that quite a few people had that they maybe didn't
ask out loud because you want to embarrass themselves. Yeah,

(04:52):
what's going on here? Well, Crimea is a peninsula that's
right on the southern tip of Ukraine. It's inside the
Black Sea, and they're another see you don't remember the
name of that see um that it's connected to, and
it's also really close to kind of uh and the
edge of Russia right on the side there. Um. It's

(05:13):
roughly twenty six thousand square kilometers. It's it's about the
size of Maryland. If you wanna have a US version
of large. It is um. A lot of people call
it the bread basket of Russia because it's one of
the largest producers of wheat and corn um, so lots
of food resources coming out of there. Um. I don't

(05:34):
know what else. Another thing that's crucial to remember here
is that the Crimean region, Carimean region is home to
a incredibly crucial port for Russia. What's the name of
that one, net Sevastopol. I believe probably pronouncing adding correctly,
but yeah, yeah, cool. It sounds like you're in hunt

(05:55):
for Red October or something nice accent. Um. So why
is this hurts so important? Well? Uh, turns out that
there are some things that you might not know about
Crimea if you just watch the recent reporting, especially in
the US. First, Crimea has been part of Ukraine since

(06:16):
nineteen fifty four. Officially that was with the what was
that after World So after World War Two? Then what
was the thing that was? Kris chef he um gave
it away? But yeah, he okay, I I need to
look more into this stuff. The things I was reading

(06:38):
about was mostly the oh okay, well we'll just but
well let's start let's start here, Okay, so UH at
the time, Ukraine is one of the Soviet socialist republics,
So this gift that Kruschev does is pretty much symbolic. UH.
Russia had stationed its black sea fleet in this port

(07:01):
on Crimea since the late seventeen hundreds, and for much
of its history, Crimea has been UH or had been
considered part of Russia. Now let's just take a second
about this black sea fleet and point out why it's
so important. This port allows Russia to access the Mediterranean

(07:22):
UH via a very very very strictly controlled area in
Turkey called the Bosphorus, and UH there are treaties that
allow commercial vehicles free passage in that in that straight
UH only during times of peace. But also considering that
so much of Russia is UM isolated from the from

(07:48):
the rest of these big trading ports, this one is
a huge deal. UM. You know, we saw I don't
want to call it too much of a similar situation,
but we saw some parallels with the UH with the
port that Russia holds in Syria UM during the same time.
So Russia is always going to try to preserve these ports. UM.

(08:12):
Since the fall of the Soviet Union, Kremea has kind
of been on its own. It's been relatively autonomous for
for a while. Yeah, that that's one of the really
interesting things that that I learned about this, just that
it has its own legislative body, even though it is
a part of Ukraine, right, it has its own legislative
body and a parliament and even a prime minister. And

(08:35):
the really interesting thing about it to me was that
the prime minister has to be approved by Kiev or
by the administrators in Kiev, which is interesting to me.
But but they still get to function on their own
and make laws and you know, legislate, right, Yeah, within
the bounds of that area. And um. Part of that

(08:56):
I think comes from the fact that Kremea has been
historically an unstable part of the world. It's been occupied
by the Greeks, by the Ottomans. Um this if if
the current situation with the UH the Autonomous Republic of
Korea does lead to a military conflict, it's not going

(09:18):
to be UH the first time by any means. Um
there was there was one famous one that some people
might recall and from your history class war on one
whole name. Yeah, everybody's been talking about that. If you're
interested in if you don't know what that is, and
you want to learn more about it, just look up

(09:39):
the Crimean War. Yeah. Um, we will tell you that
it was Russia on one side, with France, Britain, the
Ottoman Empire and Sardinia uh on the other side, So
it was not necessarily even Yeah, okay, So we've set
the scene here. We know that since the seventeen eighty

(10:00):
Russia has had a presence in Crimea, controlling it under
various forms of government until nineteen fifty four, and then
from nineteen fifty four, uh two about the present day,
Crimea has been uh semi autonomous part of Ukraine. Um,
let's go, let's fast forward. Okay, do you want to

(10:20):
go two? Yeah? Yeah, what happened then? Okay? So in
two thousand ten Russia negotiated uh kind of agreement between
the Sevastopal Naval Base through two So nice long chunk
of time there where they can basically they're going to
exchange uh for forty billion dollars worth of natural gas

(10:40):
discounts to allow their usage of this military base or
this naval base. A little more gas problem diplomacy, right,
gas problem being the state owned Russian energy giant Okay,
see that's that's interesting. That shows how important this area
is to Russia, this port espec actually um, and it

(11:02):
also shows how important the trade aspects of this is. So,
so let's look at the Russian side of the current situation.
Russia is saying that essentially that's protecting its interest in
this sport, um that the current Ukrainian government is um
not completely legitimate and essentially cannot be trusted to hold

(11:29):
itself to its responsibilities. Yeah. That that is a very
strange situation you get into when there's instability in a country,
especially if say the president gets kicked out by protesters. Um,
I mean there are so there's so much economic interest
going on there. What do you do? Do you send

(11:50):
your troops in or your peace keeping of what I
forget what he what he referred to them as civil
defense guys. Uh yeah, well okay, so there's there's another
problem here if you look at the Russian side of it. Um,
they have they already that treaty that we talked about

(12:13):
that allows them to maintain a presence in that port,
that already allows them to have twenty five thousand troops
in crimea twenty four artillery systems, over a hundred armored vehicles,
military planes, UM five Russian naval units station there. UM.
So basically just to protect Crimea from any invaders of Crimea.

(12:36):
That's essentially what it's for, right well. It's also it's
also something that we've talked about before, UM that's very
very big in international naval forces and militaries in general,
and that's called force projection. The United States currently runs
the game and forced projection. Force projection just what it
sounds like, the ability for a country or maybe in

(12:58):
the future corporate shan to project um it's hardware and
its troops to a foreign locale. There are three types
of navies. They're called brown water, green water, and blue water.
Brown water are the ones that are closest to the shore.
They can kind of only protect their territory. Green water

(13:20):
can get a little bit farther out. Blue water, which
is the ideal, would be a navy that is able
to travel around the world and kick tires and light fires.
For lack of a better phrase or a more dignified
or respective one, the United States has a blue water
navy because they have aircraft carriers and that and bases

(13:42):
around the world. The world is allousy with US business,
so mobilization is pretty easy from any location on the
earth US. Yeah. And so this port, because it allows
access to the Mediterranean Sea, allows Russia to send out
their own um, their own units to project force. So

(14:03):
they've got everything there, man, They've got submarines, they got
missile boats, they've got um ambition, which might be the
most dangerous of all. And so now we come to
a really weird thing. Now we know that we know
that this is a tricky podcast for us to do
because we're talking about current events and they haven't resolved themselves.

(14:25):
Uh right now, the West and NATO countries are saying, no, Russia,
don't take Crimea, doesn't belong to you. It's power grab.
If you do this, there will be huge consequences. And
Russia is saying, we're just trying to protect our interests
and the people of Crimea welcome us. We're already there.

(14:49):
Calm down, Why you mad bro man? What do you think? Well?
I think one of the things we have to look
at is the destabilization of Ukraine. Okay, I think that's
really important. Why did that happen? Who kind of started
the fire? And you know what, like, is there is
there anything behind that? And I know a lot of

(15:10):
the things I've been reading online, uh point to, hey,
maybe Russia did this, or on the other side, maybe
the CIA did this on purpose to destabilize some of
the gas the oil that's pumping out through what is
it to Russia or is it from Russia? From the

(15:31):
natural gas from Russia to Yes, Yeah, much of which
runs through pipelines in Ukraine. Um. So it's tough to
wade through all of it because there's a ton of
stuff to read. So did Russia destabilize Ukraine for its
own benefit or did everybody's favorite organization, the coup instigators

(15:53):
of America also make a new a new revolution, right? Yeah?
And is that why Russia was so quick to act
in response? Well, that's a very interesting point, and that
does take us behind the curtain um to some things
that you might not hear in mainstream news, which is that, uh,

(16:14):
Russia has a deep and abiding distrust of the West
because there have been there's been some i would say
circumstantial evidence, but it did convince the Russians that, um,
the West and particularly the United States was instigating coups
um in various or various former Soviet areas and areas

(16:38):
along the Russian border. Also, Um, the energy. I'm so
glad you mentioned the energy. So much of this stuff
goes back to energy. So Europe needs what like a
quarter of its gas comes from Russia, all right, So uh,
Crimea then needs electricity from Ukraine. Um, Europe hesitant to

(17:01):
anger the sleeping red bear of Russia then because the Russia,
I mean the economic disaster, but also we should keep
in mind the economic disaster for Russia as well. Um,
there are there is wide support for Korea to become

(17:22):
part of Russia, I guess. And that's that at least
from what I understand, it has a lot to do
with the ethnicity of people who lived there because it
was again at one time Crimea was part of Russia
and then it was kind of just given away or
changed its name essentially um by the ruler at the time.
So those people still feel at least I can't speak

(17:45):
for any of those people, but they feel like culturally,
culturally they're a part of Russia. Um. But then the
it's so interesting to me when you then look at
Ukraine and how Ukraine is is fairly split almost fifty
fifty and sentiments towards Russia and believing they're they're a
part of Russia, and then the other half believing that

(18:06):
they want to be a part of the EU. Right.
It's really fascinating how how much schism there can be
between in one country and how difficult it can be
at times to find the motivating force behind these different factions.

(18:27):
There is a group in Crimea that definitely does not
want Russia in control, and those would be the Crimean Tartars, Yes,
who are Muslim and make up about twelve of the population. Uh.
They have a very good reason not to want Russian rule. Uh,
a little something called discrimination, right yeah, yeah, yeah, um.

(18:48):
And that's an understatement, if ever, because the at various
times the Tartars have been uh deported, forced the labor
in can amps under horrid conditions during World War two
and Russia, and uh quite a few people died as
a result. So they have no compelling interest to trust Russia. UM.

(19:16):
The while this is stuff that you might not hear
too often in mainstream news, UM, I I have to ask.
I hesitate to make some predictions, UM, but I do
know that Crimea may well become a part of Russia
again because they're holding a vote now and we're on

(19:37):
Sunday when when this is published. Yeah, the coming Sunday,
they're holding that vote, and we know that, um, Western
Western media is not happy about it. You will probably
be able to read some stories that say there is
no no option on the vote. Well, well, it's just
do you write It's like yes, well it's yes, you

(20:00):
check check for us and offer you can't refuse. And
we know that, we know that Vladimir Putin um, being
a very smart and surprisingly charismatic leader in Russia, is
also a bit of a gangster at times. Well yeah,
and and he's trained, man, he's trained, he has his

(20:20):
background is KGB, right, And it just makes you kind
of understand the tactician that exists inside of him, that
is him, um, in the group that's around him. It's
a bit of a cautionary tale because it's it's an
illustration of what would happen if the CIA openly ran
the US government. And I say openly because there have

(20:43):
been past politicians who uh, we're a high level in
the CIA and ultimately ascended to the presidency or influence
the patient, right, and um, you know at that at
that point it goes into a little bit of a
different can of worms. But I believe this is about
force projection and control over energy and international trade. What

(21:09):
do you think again, Ben, whatever you think, I'm probably
gonna go with that. For well, for me, it's it's
it's tough to give a full on opinion because it's
stuff I have to I have to continue watching, really
and as much as I go back through the history
and and try and understand what's currently happening. Um, I'm

(21:31):
left with so many questions that, like a lot of
these topics, I don't I don't know what my opinion
is yet. Okay, I see what you're saying. Maybe somebody
can prove disprove my assertion that this is primarily a
grab for force projection and for control of energy trade. Uh.

(21:54):
I will say that I can't remember who it was.
But recently a congress person in the US argued that
the United States should begin exporting natural gas to Europe
as a move to um sort of declause or defaying Russia.
But what they ignored or a couple of very important points,

(22:17):
which are that there is no infrastructure currently in place
that would be able to perform a fraction of what
they're talking about. Um, and uh, the senator, I think
it was a senator, I'm not sure. Uh, this statesman
whoever was speaking also, uh failed to mention what had

(22:37):
persuaded them or which companies would be exporting. Whenever I
hear a politician saying something about a private business doing
something specific, I want to know the names. Yeah, well
I know a couple, but in particular if you look
at excell and they had a deal, um or they
have a deal currently to build a belief to I

(23:00):
think they're gonna drill two wells right off the shore
of Crimea and yeah, there they're trying to figure out
what's going on. And you know, if whatever new government
comes in, whoever's ruling, if they will, can you know,
continue on with those contracts or not? Um? So, I
don't know. There's definitely us and there's a lot of

(23:21):
interest and energy over there from all over the place.
Would um, where could people go? Where can we point
people if they want to learn more about this situation? Oh,
there are a lot of places you can go. Again,
my go to right now for the most interesting information
coming out is from Vice News, and that's Vice dot Com.
It's They've got a series running right now called Russian

(23:43):
Roulette The Invasion of Ukraine, and there's six parts so far,
and it's hosted or it's basically just a handful of
people over there and led by Simon Ostrovsky I believe
is his name, uh fastating they they're going into Ukrainian basis,

(24:04):
actually jumping over walls so that they can get into
a Ukrainian base and talk with the soldiers there. Um,
they're attempting to make contact with the the soldiers in green,
the Russian soldiers and get information from them. They're speaking
with naval commanders. I mean, it's it's fascinating stuff. Well,

(24:24):
you know, I'm glad you said that. It also reminds
me of a couple of things I need to say
before people right hate mail or say that I'm being
pro Russian about this. Uh. First things First, the Russian
government cartoonishly disingenuous about this entire thing. When they're saying, oh,
local militias, I don't know, I don't know, you know,
and just local militias just trying to It's right up

(24:48):
there with whenever people in the US wants support for
something and they say just trying to feed their families,
you know, like as by you know, as implying that
if you dis agree with whatever crazy thing they're spouting,
then you want families to starve. It's kind of the
same thing. It's like, it's just malicious fighting for their safety.

(25:08):
What are you are you against safety? Do you not
want people to be safe? And uh So that's first
it was. There was a lot of disingenuous uh rhetoric there. Um. Secondly, uh,
the primary concern here, while it may be energy for
quite a few decision makers or hegemony for other ones,

(25:29):
the primary concern should be the safety of the people
in these areas, which historically living in crimea. Um. If
you look at the span of history, it's a it's
a dangerous place to live. And it reminds me of
that old statement that when elephants make war, only the
grass suffers. And I hope that the population of Chrimea

(25:51):
does not become grass. So um and I don't you know,
I'm not saying anything about dying. I'm just referring to
that quotation. Uh. But we would also like to hear
from you. Let us know what you think. Tell us
on Facebook and Twitter. Um, who who has the right
of it? Is it the West? Should they take Ukraine

(26:12):
and Tornado and then also get Crimea in Tornado in
that part? Uh? Is Russia doing a reactionary thing? Or
is there a longer game? Uh? And what do you
think will happen in the Black Sea? And last, how
long do you think it's gonna take until we just
get rid of nations altogether and Google runs everything? Well,

(26:36):
I feel like Google has earned California, Matthew nice. Uh, yeah,
but that's that is a great question. When does the
collapse of the nation state occur? Let us know on
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(26:57):
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(27:19):
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